Opportunities for Commercially Hosted Payloads Continue to Emerge Within Federal Government
NEW YORK -- The federal government is becoming more convinced about the benefits of commercially hosted payload services, said Charles Beames, an adviser at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Sequestration is “brutal” and budgets are continuing to go down, he said Wednesday at the SATCON conference. The government in general has “hit the ‘I believe’ button” on hosted payloads and other opportunities to partner with the commercial satellite industry, he said. But there’s a challenge that comes with breaking paradigms, Beames said: “No one used to believe we could do these sorts of things at a fraction of the cost of major systems."
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Government’s robust adoption of commercially hosted payloads is inevitable, but how soon the shift occurs is key, Beames said. For this to be successful, the commercial and public sectors should think about a lot of these commercial types of ventures as “a couple entering a marriage,” he said: “We're either going to make this together, or we're not going to make this together.” With the right terms and conditions, “it’s a good thing for both sides,” he said. There are lots of people in key decisionmaking positions at the Pentagon “to help move that ball a bit further down field,” he said.
Hosted payloads are part of a convergence of the national security space sector, the civil space sector and the commercial sector, said Dave Anhalt, vice president of Iridium’s Prime program. NASA is further ahead than the Department of Defense in pursuing commercial opportunities, he said. NASA has three programs “that have no way of getting to space except that they be commercially hosted,” he said.
NASA, DOD and other agencies are working to increase partnerships between government users and commercial suppliers for hosted payloads and other applications, said Richard Currier, senior vice president-business development at Space Systems/Loral (SS/L). NASA has pressed forward on a number of projects, he said. “We see the necessary planning and forethought to work with the commercial industry to design the interfaces and test and prepare for the actual production models,” he said.
The U.S. could learn from Astrium’s partnership with the military satellite sector in the U.K., said Dylan Browne, vice president-business development and marketing at Astrium. The partnership is based on a rigorous set of measures and the premise is that “industry is best placed to discover risks, find efficiencies and deliver best value for money,” he said. It’s the same concept that the U.S. government is exploring, he said: “If the government and industry can find equal terms to contract upon, then industry is much more amiable towards discovering risk and adding value.”
The executives credited DOD with issuing the Hosted Payload Solutions (HOPS) indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract (CD April 29 p6). SS/L is looking forward to the HOPS selection results, Currier said. It’s a “great model because of the streamlining and the standardization and approach that will allow us to grab … additional efficiencies in hosted payloads,” Currier said. At the end of the day, the IDIQ mechanism “is an empty cup,” Anhalt said. It will be difficult to find where the money is going to come from for the contracts to be executed by HOPS, he said. DOD needs a consensus that can be validated by Congress, he said: “What’s missing in the DOD is the ability for DOD to articulate to Congress the need for these real investments in programs that are going to make a difference to the traditional military functions in space."
Funding will be critical for the opportunities that arise from the HOPS contract, Currier said. The contract will help with the preparation of “an efficient contracting approach for each opportunity,” he said. To get some of the benefits from hosted payloads, providers and users must consider where the opportunity has to be deployed around the world, the time frame of the service launch and technical interface requirements, he said.
Government interest in taking advantage of the commercial industry’s innovation in satellite communications is high, said Beames. Lawmakers “are asking the tough questions,” he said. “The burden is now on us to go in and explain it.” He urged satellite companies to give lawmakers “real data” rather than advertising their products to them: Don’t be afraid to “get geeky with the numbers” and be “steely-eyed.”